1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an incubator connected to a chamber of an isolator.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there have been used isolators of so-called microbiologically controlled environments in which cells (including bacteria and the like) taken from organisms including the human body, animals and so on, or microbes are cultivated in aseptic conditions. The isolators use a plurality of aseptic boxes or aseptic operating boxes (glove boxes) connected in series so that cells or microbes can be cultivated in aseptic conditions. Operations such as cultivation experiments on cells or microbes have been performed by an operator through a glove or similar sterile access device in a chamber of an isolator (see Patent Document 1).
In addition, after an operation such as application of a culture solution to the cells or the microbes cultivated in the chamber of the isolator is performed, the cells or the microbes are cultivated in a cultivation room of an incubator in an aseptic box (see Patent Document 2). In such a cultivation room of the incubator, typically, carbon dioxide gas (CO2) for pH adjustment of culture solution, or nitrogen gas/oxygen gas (N2/O2) in case of high-oxygen cultivation from low-oxygen cultivation is supplied from a gas supply pipe communicating to the cultivation room of the incubator, so that the cells or the microbes can be cultivated in aseptic conditions.
There is a need to eradicate sundry germs when cell manipulation is not performed in the chamber of the isolator. In other words, when exchanging the cells or the microbes under cultivation experiment in the isolator, if sundry germs are introduced into the chamber or portions of the cells or microbes used in the previous cultivation experiment remains in the chamber, they may have an adverse effect on cells or microbes under next cultivation experiment, which may result in incorrect experimental results. For the purpose of overcome this problem, the chamber is sterilized by supplying and filling the chamber with sterile gas from a sterile gas generating device, which is filled with hydrogen peroxide gas (H2O2) and equipped within the isolator. Furthermore, the cultivation room of the incubator is sterilized by wiping off it with sterile fluid.
In the meantime, there have been used a cultivating apparatus including isolators, incubators connected to the isolators, and gas supply pipes or sampling pipes. However, if there remain sundry germs intruded into this cultivating apparatus or previously cultivated cells or microbes, they may have an adverse effect on results of next cultivation experiments, which may result in incorrect experimental results. To overcome this problem, this cultivation apparatus sterilizes the remaining sundry gems and so on by naturally circulating sterile gas from chambers of the isolators into cultivation rooms of the incubators.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-518816
[Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-118021
However, when the sterile gas is naturally circulated from the chambers of the isolators into the cultivation rooms of the incubators, corners in the box-like cultivation boxes have anyway poor gas flow and less circulated sterile gas. This may result in incomplete sterilization of the entire cultivation rooms of the incubators.
In addition, the naturally-circulated sterile gas may not be naturally circulated in the sampling pipes and the gas supply pipes for supplying cultivation gas such as carbon dioxide gas into the cultivation rooms of the incubators. This also may result in inability to sterilize the sampling pipes and the gas supply pipes for supplying cultivation gas such as carbon dioxide gas.
To overcome the above-mentioned problems, it is an object of the invention to provide an incubator for an isolator, which is capable of reliably sterilizing a cultivation room of the incubator, a gas supply pipe and a sampling pipe.